CHAPTER IX. 



THE BEE-HUNTERS. 



" In that bit of forest," said the bee-master, indicating 

 a long stretch of neighbouring woodland with one com- 

 prehensive sweep of his thumb, " there are tons of honey 

 waiting for any man who knows how to find it." 



I had met and stopped the old bee-keeper and his men, 

 bent on what seemed a rather singular undertaking. They 

 carried none of the usual implements of their craft, but 

 were laden up with the paraphernalia of woodmen — rip- 

 saws and hatchets and climbing-irons, and a mysterious 

 box or two, the use of which I could not even guess at. 

 But the bee-master soon made his errand plain. 



" Tons of honey," he went on. " And we are going to 

 look for some of it. There have been wild bees, I suppose, 

 in the forest-country from the beginning of things. Then 

 see how the land lies. There are villages all round, and 

 for ages past swarms have continually got away from the 

 bee-gardens, and hived themselves in the hollow trunks of 

 the trees. Then every year these stray colonies have sent 

 out their own swarms again, until to-day the woods are full 

 of bees, wild as wolves and often as savage, guarding 

 stores that have been accumulating perhaps for years and 

 years." 



He shifted his heavy kit from one shoulder to the other. 

 Overhead the sun burned in a cloudless August sky, and the 

 willow-herb by the roadside was full of singing bees and 

 the flicker of white butterflies. In the hedgerows there 

 were more bees plundering the blackberry blossom, or 

 sounding their vagrant note in the white convolvulus-bells 

 which hung in bridal wreaths at every turn of the way. 

 Beyond the hedgerow the yellow cornlands flowed away 

 over hill and dale under the torrid light ; and each scarlet 

 poppy that hid in the rustling gold-brown wheat had its 

 winged musician chanting at its portal. As I turned and 



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